The only place to be

Gonna call our fans plastic again. Back on ignore with you.

I blame Gary Neville for upsetting him

Look, Bertrand is an ok player. He's never been anything more than that, whereas Shaw is putting in some very fine performances at the age of 18. £20 million amortised over the life of Shaw's potential contract really isn't that massive a hit, especially if that fee is reduced by the inclusion of Bertrand in a deal as a story today suggests.

http://www.vipboxuk.co/football/199604/1/derby-county-vs-chelsea-live-stream-online.html

Ramires on the right....If we sold De Bruyne and Mata and acquired a midfielder then Rami might be required to play wide on the right every now and then. Just a thought.

In his one league performance he was ok. He might have been better than Cole but you've got to look at the contest in context. Neither is expected to be here next year in all likelihood so you make money off of Bertrand and give Cole a chance to regain form. No I want to spend £20 million on a player who could fill a spot for a decade and probably has a shot a nailing down the starting spot if he joins in the summer.

We need to win the match so we don't face a replay. With City getting one then it might add a tiny edge in our favour. He's giving Luiz and Cahill another run out and it looks like we're using the 433 again. I know you might not get the importance of this competition but Jose does and if you gave him that choice, he'd want BOTH. That's why we love him. The future problems are an extra game or a loss of momentum. There's no reason not to go out and win this game.

He hasn't been really good. He's been ok but the guy is 24 and played 200 games and not made much of an impression. Probably time to move on. Our replacement LB is Cole at the moment and that other left-back we want to buy is probably already better than Bertrand and 6 years younger. If Ryan doesn't fit in then it makes sense to let him go and no point in cup-tying him for no reason. Might be because he's off, might be because Mourinho likes him or it might be because he's a better option than those other guys. None of them screams captaincy material.

Draw's on. Home against Stoke.

So he should come out and say 'I need players in summer, like really bad babes'?? Some people need to get a bit of real-world experience and understand that there's nothing to be gained from expressing a desire to buy a certain player or type of player. That serves only to increase the price whereas playing down your needs might actually benefit you. The same goes for Mourinho's comments about not getting a striker. What does he gain from expressing a need for one? It just creates another narrative in the media and means he gets a few dozen more phone calls from agents.

The weird thing about Ba is his lack of physicality. So lightweight it's not even funny. Not worth cup-tying Bertrand? Injured? Not very good? Need to win the match and there's no game for a week so no reason not to field a strong team. Plus he respects the competition.

I thought that too. It's all well and good winding up the fans but when you're being surrounded by four blokes carrying you, you've got to think about them being hit (by shit which shouldn't be thrown, but still).

If he continues his progress then he's potentially the best player in the world, and you don't sell those players if you're Chelsea. You certainly don't go to France if you're that player either. Bale left Spurs for £80 million. For Hazard to leave us then you're looking at breaking the £100 million mark and even then, the damage done to 'Brand Chelsea' might not be worth it.

He was used in a variety of roles at Watford. Most of the time he sat deeper but it wasn't uncommon for him to be pushed forward and you wouldn't expect him to sprint back. I'm not saying he's perfect and sometimes he can be a bit relaxed, but last year he was a young guy in his first full season of pro football. He made 40-odd appearances so fatigue was always going to be something of an issue. This season has been a disaster and Forest are as much at fault as our club is because he's so wrong for their team it's not even funny. Their fans saw what he could do at Watford last year, but Forest just isn't a good fit for him. Hopefully he gains something from this and treats it as a learning experience. EDIT - not in the team or on the bench for Forest which isn't too surprising.

Bollocks. Watched the kid a lot and whilst he can look a little 'relaxed' at times, he's rarely caught out of position and is hardly a turnstile. Always found his reading of the game great and never had a problem with his workrate. But I can understand why you might think that, because when I was much younger I thought the same of players like Tony Adams. Because they weren't running around like headless chicken I thought they were lazy but you come to realise that their reading of the game means they don't really have to.

Not being funny, but it's not like many English fans go on Brazilian football teams' forums (for example) is it. This forum attracts people from all over the world, because English football is better.

£8 million plus Bertrand seems a remarkably decent deal for us, although if you take all the reports as gospel ( ) then surely that values Bertrand at around the £10 million mark.

No-one wants him to leave but if he stays, what role does he play?

Both very poor examples. Ashley is very much on his way out, Lukaku is a young guy under contract and Mata is potentially as asset we may sell in the future. So, um yeah. He's also disingenuous, manipulative and not adverse to lying.

Man City facing an extra game. Lovely job. Now we're just got to put away Derby first time out.

Personally I think moving Ramires from the wing to the middle completely changed the way the whole team performed rather than one player, but we'll have to agree to disagree. And we finished 6th and 3rd respectively. That wasn't just down to him, but we made severe concessions when including him in the team. He's a fantastic footballer and he'll produce magic, but my priority is always how does the team perform and we look less disjointed with Oscar than we do with Mata. I've said that for some time now.

Done deal. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2533700/Lewandowski-sign-five-year-deal-Bayern-today-wont-cost-penny.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

He'll get 30-35 games a season. I can't see him being too unhappy with that, and there's really no such thing as a permanent pick in a 60 game season.

That was a change in more than just Mata coming on. We withdrew a holding midfielder when there wasn't a need for one and Mata was hardly spectacular when he came on. Mazacar always looked vulnerable. They still looked vulnerable away to Newcastle and losing one world-class player when TWO have emerged this season (Hazard and Oscar) is just one of those choices you sometimes have to make, especially if you're looking to sign a world-class striker. Possession football is great, but it's what you do with that possession.

The reason is because Mata brings in a lot more money than those fringe players, removes one more narrative from the media and we can use the money to acquire a player who fits the system better. I know you've suggested keeping Mata in the squad but you have squad players who do one of two things usually - maintain the same system when bringing them on to kill off matches or trying to add tempo to chase the match. Which of these does Mata do?